1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a golf club grip and manufacturing method thereof, and more particularly to a natural leather golf club grip that does not become slick and hard after being in wet conditions, is easy to clean and maintain, mildew resistant, cost efficient, and has decreased defective rate during manufacturing process.
2. Description of the Related Art
For hundreds of years, strip leather has been used for golf club grip material. In the usage of golf club grip, the strip leather grips were costly, difficult to wind properly, easy to unravel, became slick and hard after being in wet conditions, hard to clean and maintain, and susceptible to mildew. Through the 1950s, these drawbacks might have been some of the reasons why rubber mold grip have took over the strip leather golf club grip's market share and became popular.
Referring to the prior art 1967 U.S. Pat. No. 3,338,175 Onions, a multi-layer leather golf club grip that has an inner lining sleeve to receive the larger end of the golf club shaft and an outer leather layer wrapped and adhered onto the inner lining sleeve is disclosed. Further referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, this outer leather layer can either be a spirally wrapped strip layer or a sheet layer. Because of the outer sheet layer's shape, the single sheet leather golf club grip 1 in a prior art does not have the winding and the unravelling problems of the strip leather golf club grip 2 in another prior art. The Applicant Hong-Sung Chu developed an axial seam structure strong enough to hold the single natural leather sheet's two axial margins together, to decrease the defective rate in production, and to enhance the expansion capacity of the grips in an effort to not only ease installation but also to increase the maximum grip size attainable (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/590,506, filed Nov. 9, 2009). Yet, the conventional multi-layer leather golf club grips 1, 2 still have other drawbacks, namely: cost, becoming slick and hard after being in wet conditions, hard to clean and maintain, and susceptibility to mildew.